New York (AFP) – Gospel legend Aretha Franklin has scrapped upcoming shows for health reasons, the 74-year-old announced — her latest in a series of cancellations dating back to last year.
“Regretfully, due to doctors’ orders I will have to cancel a few concerts for the next month or so,” she said in a statement Monday without further details on her condition.
Franklin has called off several shows since 2015. She nixed a Las Vegas concert a year ago citing exhaustion and put off a small tour of Florida in March citing problems with her back-up band.
Among the latest cancellations, Franklin will no longer participate in a 90th birthday celebration for crooner Tony Bennett at Radio City Music Hall in New York.
Franklin had earlier been named as the headliner of an inaugural New York festival in September that would also feature leading winemakers.
But after announcing the “City Winery Open” festival, organizers said they were pushing it back to 2017 for logistical reasons.
Franklin, who has won 18 Grammys, is best known for her feminist-tinged cover of Otis Redding’s “Respect.”
The daughter of a Baptist minister, she recorded her first album in his church in Detroit when she was 14.
She last year sang “Amazing Grace” before Pope Francis as he visited Philadelphia for the massive Festival of Families.
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